What went wrong with the snow forecast?

Nov. 8, 2012

Written by

Staff and wire reports

11 a.m.: What went wrong with the snow forecast for Monmouth and Ocean counties?

By late Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service was predicting up to 4 inches of snow in some parts of Monmouth and Ocean counties and had issued a winter weather advisory for the area.

But a lot more snow fell in some locales, including 13 inches in Freehold, 12 inches in the Allaire section of Howell, and 12 inches in Jackson and Manchester, according to unofficial observations reported to the National Weather Service Mount Holly office. A winter storm warning wasn’t issued until last night.

Other reported snowfall totals include 5.5 inches in Wall, 2 inches in Neptune City, 0.6 inches in Monmouth Beach, 8.5 inches in Beachwood, 5 inches in Brick and 1 inch in Barnegat, according to the weather service.

“We had (a) few heavier bands of … precipitation set up over our area that were in the form of snow,” said Mitchell Gaines, a meteorologist in the Mount Holly office.

The storm moved up the Atlantic Coast as expected, but precipitation ended up being heavier, Gaines said. “As that heavier precipitation fell, it brought colder air from higher up in the atmosphere down to the surface, so that allowed it to fall as snow.”

Some snow was already on the ground before the heavier precipitation hit and the snow was able to accumulate efficiently when the sun went down, Gaines said.

The snow forecast was “difficult to pin down and to see how things developed during the night-time hours,” he said.

Meanwhile, we will see a gradual warming trend from today through the next several days, although the temperature may not get out of the 40s in Monmouth County today, Gaines said. Temperatures should rise into the 60s by Veterans Day.

10:15 a.m. Coastal flood warning canceled

The nor’easter, as promised, brought gusting winds, rain and snow, but not the flooding that was anticipated. The National Weather Service canceled a coastal flood warning after high tide Thursday with all locations below flood levels.

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9:30 a.m. Snowstorm causes over 150K new outages

A nor’easter disrupted recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy, dumping more than a foot of heavy wet snow in parts of the state and knocking out power to more than 150,000, including some who had lost their electricity during Sandy. But it appeared to have done little new damage to the already badly scarred Jersey Shore.

The state’s two largest utilities blamed more than 150,000 new outages on the nor’easter, bumping the total in New Jersey up to about 390,000, after Sandy-related outages had dropped for the first time to below a quarter-million. At its peak, last week’s superstorm had left more than 2.7 million utility customers without power.

Jersey Central Power & Light, whose customer base is in Ocean and Monmouth counties, where some of the heaviest snow fell and where Sandy also caused the most damage, said the nor’easter caused about 120,000 outages, on top of 149,000 left over from the superstorm.

8:15 a.m. Bus ran off Parkway in Wall

WALL - No one was injured when a bus ran off the road on the Garden State Parkway north, near mile marker 100.2, around 6:30 a.m. State Police said.

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7 a.m. Nor'easter disrupts Sandy recovery efforts

The nor’easter that disrupted recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy pulled away from New Jersey, leaving behind a blanket of thick, wet snow that snapped storm-weakened trees and downed power lines.

The snow helped ease fears of flooding along the coast, which was compromised by Sandy. The National Weather Service canceled a coastal flood warning after high tide Thursday with all locations below flood levels.

Monmouth and Ocean counties, which took a beating from Sandy, appeared to receive the most snow. There were 13 inches measured in Freehold and a foot in Manchester Township.

Accumulations were much lower at the coast.

The nor’easter caused another round of power outages in the state. Sandy left roughly 2.76 million utility customers without power at the height of the storm, and many of those customers who had just seen their power finally restored lost it again when the nor’easter hit Wednesday. Utilities reported 400,920 power outages early Thursday.

Plows and salt-spreaders cleared the state’s major highways. However, local streets, already lined with debris from Sandy, were a mess.

It was a relatively smooth commute on the rails and roads, NJ Transit said. However, there were delays for buses in the northwest suburbs, according to spokesman John Durson Jr..

Thursday was the first day for buses to shuttle commuters from MetLife Stadium to ferries in Weehawken for a free ride into Manhattan.

Mandatory evacuations were in place for some coastal and low-lying communities in central Jersey, which were newly vulnerable to flooding, wind damage and power outages due to the devastation caused by Sandy.

National Guard troops were deployed to help run newly opened shelters. Truckloads of bottled water were arriving, and disaster relief agencies had set up temporary facilities to serve thousands of hot meals to evacuees.